The first one was surprisingly good, but the sequels? Not so much. Have you seen 30 Days of Night?

No...not yet. I couldn't get a good feel (from previews) for whether or not I'd like it and haven't heard from anyone who's seen it. With a few exceptions, most of my friends are anti-horror flick kinda girls!

For some reason, the Saw and Hostel movies don't do it for me. I prefer actual monsters in my monster movies :-) It's a union thing - we ghouls have to stick together.

You know what? I think "Saw" is an exception to the rule that sequels are lesser films than the original. I was lukewarm on the first. Loved the premise, hated the gimmicky ending. I thought there was absolutely no way that was plausible the way it ended.

That is, until the second one, with its fantastic twist regarding the girl in the exploding jaw contraption. The way they tied it in I thought was outstanding, and I was on board for the third one too.

I'm interested to see what they do for the fourth one, though I'll probably wait until DVD like I did for the rest of them.

Saw IV did not disappoint. Equal parts of startle, gore and psychotic twists! Exactly what I wanted and even more than I expected, especially having the sequel bias that I do.

I think I was the oldest person in the theater packed with mostly twenty-somethings, but I appreciated the crowd that verbalized what I'm supposed to be far too mature to verbalize myself with cheers and encouragement when "the games" began.

If you've seen the three prior movies, you know that Jigsaw preys on and tests the flaws of each of his victims. In this case, Detective Rigg is warned to "be patient...let go". He has 90 minutes to hurry up and be patient to save the lives of two fellow detectives! 90 minutes that take him from clue to clue and the pain, torture and demise of victim after victim...each one just as bad or worse than the former causing one to cringe just imagining being in such a position. Ouch!

Since we saw Jigsaw die in the 3rd movie, we are led to believe that he's playing the game from the grave...and trying to figure out the twist that shows us what we think is impossible. If you guess the twist--or even the surprising timeline--before the movie's ending makes it clear, you're smarter than me...or at least where sociopathic cognition is concerned!

Go see it...and when you leave, take with you the sentiment Jigsaw repeats throughout the movie: Cherish Your Life

My own seems much less burdensome for some reason!

Chris I agree completely. You should see films based on my recommendation. :)

Wait. No. I mean about Spider-Man 3 and Shrek 3. ONe of my big regrets of the year is that I didn't get to write a review of SM3, because that was a film I literally wanted to see made since I was 10 years old...if I could have picked any story in any genre I would have picked Spider-Man's black suit saga, and they totally botched the concept.

And as for Shrek 3...well it was like they just decided they needed to do another one but figured people would show up and laugh at Shrek doing nothing, so they put that on the screen.

This entry in the "Saw" series, though, struck me as a step below the first three. I really thought the story was told after the third (cliffhanger ending aside), and this one seems a little forced.

Grr. Wrath of Khan should've been mine. Best. Sequel. Ever.

Godfather 2 is up there.